{"id":6261,"date":"2017-12-20T18:55:38","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T02:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/?p=6261"},"modified":"2019-01-07T19:52:06","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T03:52:06","slug":"gingerbread-houses-and-other-edible-abodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/?p=6261","title":{"rendered":"Gingerbread Houses (and other edible abodes)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been holding a Rowdy Baker “Holiday House” contest for five (now six!) years running, and have seen some great houses made . . . mostly made by youngsters. I love seeing kids in the kitchen, and am thrilled to have them participate, but am convinced that adults are missing out on all the fun!<\/p>\n

And it is fun. It’s also messy, frustrating, and persnickety, but mostly FUN!<\/p>\n

I’m just beginning to get comfortable with creating my own templates for the structures. I (loosely) followed instructions from a great book: “The Gingerbread Architect” by Susan Matheson and Lauren Chattman, for some of my creations and still use the recipe in the book for my gingerbread base, though I add a little less leavening and a little more spice than the authors call for.<\/p>\n

The collapse of my house in 2015 was not the fault of the plans in the book. I think I just wasn’t patient enough. It really helps to spread your efforts out over a few days and let that royal icing set hard as you go.<\/p>\n

I don’t enter my own contest, of course, but I do play along. I can’t ask people to do something I wouldn’t do, right? Besides, I love making huge messes and staying up until the wee hours creating all the little details. Sometimes it’s challenging, but I try to make every single item on my houses edible.<\/p>\n

I’ll show you the houses I’ve made so far, and just add to this post every year.<\/p>\n

2018<\/strong> A dollhouse style home with a family of mice. It’ll take more than two photos to give you a good idea of what was inside. Everything was edible except for the foil on a few pieces of candy.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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I drove this poor house 30 miles over rough road to deliver it to friends. It arrived intact, though that upper attic floor was sagging in a scary manner!<\/p><\/div>\n

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2017<\/strong> A mountain of fudge with a gingerbread cabin and gingerbread critters.<\/p>\n

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2016<\/strong> (my personal favorite) a barn with gum paste and\/or chocolate clay reindeer and farm animals inside. This thing was huge. And heavy!\"\"<\/p>\n

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2015<\/strong> I actually made two. One was a monster of a house (which collapsed the next day in a very dramatic fashion.) and the other was an igloo made of sugar.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

2014<\/strong> was a more traditional house. I put a glow stick inside and the light shone through the windows.\"\"<\/p>\n

2013<\/strong> was the year that started it all. A blogging friend and I put out a challenge to make a pretzel house. The two of us were the only ones who actually entered, but we sure had a blast.\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

So there you have it: five years of planning, swearing, and creating. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. The holidays are so busy, it’s hard to cut out time for a project like this, but so much of it can be simplified. And when it’s done (which is never, because you’ll keep thinking of just one more thing<\/em> to add to your house) you’ll be pretty proud of your accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Let that flour fly!<\/p>\n

Lorinda<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been holding a Rowdy Baker “Holiday House” contest for five (now six!) years running, and have seen some great houses made . . . mostly made by youngsters. I love seeing kids in the kitchen, and am thrilled to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[83],"tags":[865,864,866],"class_list":["post-6261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holidays","tag-gingerbread-house","tag-holiday-house","tag-sugar-igloo"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therowdybaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Gingerbread-house-close.jpg?fit=3318%2C2212","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YuGU-1CZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6261"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7195,"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions\/7195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.therowdybaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}